(CNN) — Lindsay Clancy admits to killing her three small children.
Her own lawyers don’t deny she did it but say she should not be held criminally responsible for her actions, arguing that Lindsay was suffering from postpartum psychosis and extreme mental illness at the time. She is suing her healthcare providers, alleging medical malpractice for their failure to adequately diagnose and treat her.
Why then, are throngs of armchair analysts online pointing fingers at her ex-husband, Patrick, blaming him for the deaths?
The ongoing murder trial has captivated an audience far beyond the coastal Boston suburb where the 2023 family tragedy resulted in the deaths of Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and 8-month-old Callan and a suicide attempt by their mother that left her paralyzed from the waist down.
The surge in public interest in the case has resulted in a wave of online scrutiny aimed at someone who by all accounts, is not a suspect. Lack of trust in authorities and disinformation swirl in online communities, experts say, often leading people to form alternative theories that are rewarded with increased engagement on social media.
Here’s what we know about why Patrick Clancy was ruled out as a suspect – and why such conspiracy theories often emerge from highly publicized legal cases.
‘I don’t believe that …’
Patrick took the stand as the prosecution’s first witness. For some, his testimony raised more questions than answers.
Because Lindsay Clancy agreed to what’s called a stipulation of facts in the case, prosecutors don’t have to present all of their evidence in court. When there is a gap in the televised trial, it creates a vacuum many content creators are filling with alternative hypotheses.
Many are leaning into their own unsubstantiated suppositions, even those not backed by evidence.
“I do not believe that Lindsay Clancy committed these crimes. I fully believe that Patrick convinced her that she did,” one TikTok user said.
“I didn’t doubt anything that happened until this man opened his mouth,” another user said.
Attorneys with Howard Cooper, Todd & Weld, the law firm representing Patrick Clancy, are calling statements like that patently false and defamatory, warning of the real-life consequences making such claims can have.
“The facts are indisputable: Patrick Clancy has suffered an unspeakable and unimaginable loss. Unfortunately, the tragedy Patrick has experienced has been compounded by patently false, defamatory, and injurious public statements,” their statement reads. “The individuals making those statements – from minor influencers to major celebrities – should be on notice that their despicable actions and false, defamatory statements have caused real life consequences to the health and safety of Patrick and his family.”
These theories spreading online, one expert says, stem from people’s struggles to find a fulfilling explanation for what has happened.
“Where a mother has killed children, you’re motivated to think – that can’t be,” said Michael Wagner, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication. His research focuses on how individuals’ experiences in online environments are associated with what they believe to be true.
‘Everyone is a suspect until they’re not’
While most homicide investigations first look at people closest to the victims, Patrick Clancy likely would have been ruled out as a suspect early on because of his solid alibi, said Ken Corey, current fellow at the Chicago Police Lab, and former NYPD chief.
“Everyone is a suspect until they’re not,” Corey explained. “They’re only not going to be a suspect when there’s either compelling evidence that shows that they did not or could not have committed this crime, or that there’s compelling evidence showing that someone else actually did commit the crime.”
Evidence publicly presented in the Clancy case indicates Lindsay was the only adult at the family home when investigators believe the children were attacked. Corey says it clearly shows Patrick was not home.
“He is actually elsewhere, and that’s backed up, not just by surveillance video of him in the CVS,” the former police chief explained. During their investigation, detectives would have taken Patrick’s phone to track his movements and, depending on the vehicle, obtained his car’s onboard GPS data “to conclusively show that he could not have committed the crime because he was not physically there at the time that the crime was committed,” he said.
Here’s the timeline of Patrick’s movements as presented in court:
- Before he left the family home shortly after 5 p.m. on January 24, 2023, to pick up medication and dinner, Patrick rocked the baby for a minute, noticed his older son eating on the couch and kissed his daughter on the head, he testified.
- Prior to entering the pharmacy, an approximately three-minute drive from the family’s home, evidence presented in court showed Patrick sent an email, then went inside the store.
- While at the pharmacy, phone records show Patrick called Lindsay, but she didn’t answer. She called him back about a minute later – around the time investigators believe the killings took place – and the two had a brief conversation with Lindsay confirming it was fine to pick up the generic version of the medicine she had requested, Patrick testified. Surveillance footage of Patrick inside the pharmacy and a receipt from his purchase were shown in court.
- After checking out at the pharmacy, Patrick drove approximately 10 minutes to a restaurant to pick up the dinner order Lindsay had placed. Surveillance video shows Patrick walked into the restaurant at 5:54 p.m. and was inside for less than two minutes. Patrick testified it took around 10-12 minutes to drive home.
- At home, Patrick said he found Lindsay outside, lying face-up and bleeding in their backyard and called 911. When he asked where their children were, she old him they were in the basement, he testified. She did not mention they were injured or needed help, he said.
- As first responders arrived and began tending to Lindsay, Patrick went to the basement of the home, where he found his children. Responding officers heard screams coming from inside the home and ran into the basement. There they found Patrick, who looked up and screamed, “She killed the f**king kids!” a Duxbury police officer testified.
The fact that Lindsay Clancy’s legal team is not challenging that she strangled her children is another reason to exclude Patrick as a suspect, Corey said.
“If there was the slightest chance that they could instill some reasonable doubt by introducing an alternate theory of the crime and shifting the blame onto him instead of her, they certainly would have done so,” Corey told CNN.
The new culture of internet sleuthing
So, with an admission by Lindsay and evidence placing Patrick outside of the home during the killings, why are amateur sleuths still devouring and dissecting the details in an attempt to find another explanation for the killings?
Wagner’s research shows that when people have a lot of knowledge about a topic, but very low trust in institutions, they become more likely to adopt conspiracy theories. Those conspiracy theories, Wagner said, are often ways of looking at the world that provide answers to questions when an outcome is too uncomfortable for people.
“So, if they’re following the trial and have learned a lot of detail about the trial, but don’t trust the legal system, and don’t trust police, and don’t trust the news media, they may be more likely to adopt conspiracy theories as a way to explain why the outcome they think should happen isn’t happening,” Wagner elaborated, calling the phenomenon a “toxic soup for the development of conspiratorial thinking.”
What tends to go viral on social media, Wagner said, are things that are highly emotional or often not verifiable or true. “When people see those things churn up in their feed again and again and again, because the algorithm prizes that kind of content, they also become more likely to engage in conspiratorial thinking,” he said.
Adding to the issue may also be that people are seeing clips from the televised trial in “very distilled segments” on social media, Wagner said, often from creators with their own agenda, like saying: “It couldn’t have been her; it had to be something else.”
The phenomenon, Corey said, is something law enforcement trainers caution detectives against: investigative bias. “You can cherry-pick certain facts that will point to Patrick Clancy, or you can manipulate certain facts that will make him appear to be guilty and share those online. But you’re doing that by ignoring the facts that exculpate him,” Corey explained.
People are also often so committed to keeping their own perspective, Wagner said, that when contrary evidence is presented to them, they find ways to explain away that evidence. “And it happens the most with the educated, ironically, because the educated have been taught to argue with evidence,” Wagner added.
For many, it could be this simple: the horror and unfathomable tragedy of a woman, described as a doting mother suffering from a mental health crisis, ending the lives of her beloved children, may just be too hard to grasp.
The-CNN-Wire
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